Plan the perfect trip to Italy

At least once a week, I get asked by one of our future guests about a crazy idea they’ve had to visit some far-off city on a Tuscany day-trip. I used to push back hard. “Are you nuts? Why on earth would you want to go all that way when there is so much to …

For those of you who find it hard to sit still on vacation, Tuscany is the perfect stomping ground for you. If you are wanting to indulge in a little walking, running or cycling to help combat those extra calories consumed, this area has a challenging and spectacular landscape. Chianti and Tuscany are criss-crossed by tracks …

Are you are an expert in your field, and love the idea of running a course or workshop in a beautiful location? Maybe you’ve run courses before, but would like to run a more up-scale retreat? You might be a yoga instructor, a chef, a professional photographer, a complementary medicine trainer, a dietitian, landscape painter, or a …

The third day-trip in my series of Day-trips in Tuscany takes us to the east to visit some of the cuter, smaller villages that we love. You can take this route in either direction, depending on where you want to stop for lunch, but I’ll take you on our more usual route… Stop 1 – The …

Guests who come to stay at our Chianti villa rentals near Castellina in Chianti are often looking for day-trip ideas. A couple of weeks back I described our most popular day-trip, to San Gimignano and Volterra. This week I’m heading north of Patrignone into the Chianti Hills. You can do this loop in any direction you like, and …

Guests at our agriturismo in Chianti are always asking us for ideas for day-trips, and so we’ve got good and creating manageable tours that won’t leave you exhausted. And here’s the first. It’s one of our most popular days out. It’s a circular tour that starts and ends at Podere Patrignone, but you can start …

The grapes are fat and juicy, the harvest is in full flow, and so is the wine. Because while people are toiling in the fields breaking their backs picking the new grapes, lots of other people are tasting huge quantities of the end result at a number of wine festivals. The two big ones near …

Obviously, we don’t get a lot of time off during the summer. Our holiday villa rental business keeps us pretty busy, and then there’s the olives, the garden…we’re pretty much on our toes the whole time. But if we can wrangle it, we like to take a day off every now and then and head …

Now, our agriturismo is in the very centre of the Chianti Classico wine region, and with so many beautiful towns to see near us, sometimes it’s hard not to feel a little disloyal to suggest places to see outside the area. But I have no problem in advising our guests who rent a vacation villa here at …